by Chris Bunch
“So why are you asking?”
“Well … the whole thing with me and Jasith has been so goddamned strange. I see her at a party, and whambo, high-ilium flares go off, and we’re running here, there, falling in bed every chance we get.
“Then the ‘Raum thing explodes, and a whole bunch of people get killed, and Jasith doesn’t want to see me.
“I hang around like a stomped giptel, and then she goes and marries Kouro, which she now says she doesn’t know why the hell she did it.
“Neither do I. So they’re married, and I’m stumbling around here behaving like a shit under glass, and then the Musth come roaring in.
“Now it’s Kouro’s turn to be a prize prick … except that he does it on everybody, sucking the Musth off. So here comes Jasith back, and we’re kazoingo again, and then the war’s over, and Kouro’s history.”
“That was a very quick sitrep, Mil Jaansma,” Njangu said. “What’s the problem now? Can’t you handle being the toy of somebody who’s maybe the richest … and sure as hell the prettiest … Rentier in the whole frigging system?”
“I don’t know what the problem is,” Garvin said.
“Has Jasith gotten unhappy with things?”
“No,” Garvin said. “Whatever problem there is … if there’s even a problem … is me.”
“Awright, let’s try it with simple questions,” Njangu said. “Have you started jumping the bones of anybody else?”
“No.”
“Are you thinking about wanting to jump somebody’s bones?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could I ask who … never mind. None of my goddamned business, and not part of the question, anyway,” Njangu said. “Let’s stick to Jasith. Since I know zip-squat about love, which has been established, what’s wrong? Don’t the ol’ bells and whistles go off?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean, you think so? Put it vulgarly … do you two still screw like rabbits?”
“Well, yeh.”
“All right,” Njangu said with finality. “Let’s call the matter settled. You still get hard, she still gets soft, so there’s no problem there. Beyond that, if either of us believed in any kind of a god, I’d say you should talk to the chaplain, which, come to think, I just realize the Force hasn’t replaced since whatsisface got blown away in the war.
“So let’s leave it at this … you’re still in love, you’re just having a moment of self-doubt. Which no big-time Mil can afford, especially one who’s expected to be a symbol to his men. Right?”
Garvin smiled a little tentatively, then his grin firmed up.
“Right. Sorry. Maybe I’m just tired. Or it’s the weather.”
“Probably,” Njangu agreed. But, when Garvin went back to his spreadsheet, Yoshitaro considered him carefully, a slightly worried look on his face.
• • •
Ho Kang, four other officers, and two dozen other trainees stared up at the ship. It appeared to be a shining-new Kelly-class destroyer, but was another fifty meters longer, and was referred to as a kane-class attach controller.
Kang wondered what she was doing here, having found a nice, safe slot as a thinker. But she’d discovered she was more of a soldier than she’d thought and couldn’t stand that her friends in the Force were going into jeopardy without her. Plus she had a nice, healthy streak of bloodthirstiness, and so she’d volunteered for this new section.
The job she was being trained for was nearly as ancient as the convoy system the Larissans had adopted — to attack organization with organization. The system, back in the Very Dark Ages, had been called the wolfpack, and had worked very well, especially when an attack commander was able to keep himself just away from the actual battleground to coordinate the attackers, but close enough to be able instantly to react to any change from the enemy.
Kang had taken the quick tests Force doctors had devised, done very well, not surprising since she was already a qualified pilot, good at instinctive targeting, had a liking for probability analysis, and found herself once again in school.
It was tough. Ho hadn’t realized how rusty her advanced math had gotten, how much of her prob-analysis came from experience and instinct rather than a systematic use of the Neumann-Haller equations. Not to mention having to learn other areas, from the logistics of how many bullets and beans the ships she’d be controlling had aboard, when their crews were scheduled for leave, resupply capabilities at various Legion bases. Not to mention strategic intelligence understanding of what Redruth and company might have in mind for their next plot.
One thing that helped her was her earlier background as a warrior. She was in good physical shape, stayed there, so when the school problems were dumped on the trainees, hour after hour, she was one of the few capable of still blearing through to a solution.
An emaciated-looking technician who was cultivating a drooping moustache in the faint hope it might make him look slightly more military stood in front of the class.
“This never happens in the romances,” said the technician, who had the equally uninspiring name of Spelvin. “A warrior’s sword or helmet is always ready for him to clap on and go out and smite away. The Kane should’ve been ready two weeks ago.
“However, one of the suppliers decided to lower his pay scale, and the electronics guild has struck. The government’s intervening, but that’ll take another week or so to resolve.
“We brought you here so you can rest assured your training isn’t in vain, that there actually is at least one craft being set up as a control ship, and hence we shall have a place for you.
“We just aren’t sure when.”
• • •
Adj-Prem Monique Lir and Tweg Darod Montagna sat in the wardroom of the Merchant Ship Brns, cups full of a murky substance imaginatively called caff, talking away another dull watch.
All around them, working in their bones, was the hum of a spaceship under drive. The Brns, on secondary drive, was making a quick transit from D-Cumbre out to the research station/warning post on K-Cumbre, with a small patrol ship as escort. The two I&R soldiers were aboard the transport because Caud Angara had decided all ships traveling beyond the orbit of G-Cumbre must not only be escorted, but be armed as well.
Pias blisters were hastily cast and mounted to merchant ships’ hulls. Two Goddard shipkillers were mounted inside the blisters, and small Shadow countermissiles added in smaller blisters to either side. A control station was located somewhere within the ship that didn’t get in the crew’s way too badly, and four Forcemen assigned as auxiliary military gunners. The ship’s captain was their nominal commander, unless special circumstances, clearly defined, required them to follow general orders issued by the Force.
Two of the Forcemen on the Brns were assigned to the freighter on permanent duty — one a Forceman who was getting a bit old for hill-running, the other a new recruit. The other two, Lir and Montagna, were floaters, dividing duty time between their normal station and a starship. The I&R people didn’t wear rank tabs or uniforms aboard ship, but civilian clothes or ship’s coveralls, trying to fit into the civilian world as cleanly as possible.
Other Cumbrian ships received the same weaponry, the same assignment of gunners.
There’d been some trouble at first. The soldiers resented the merchantmen’s vastly higher pay and living conditions during wartime, and the civilian crew members scorned the military for being not much better than armed sheep.
Three things ended the potential feud — Caud Angara’s orders that gun crew would work as hard as any crewmen on any task the captain chose to ask them to perform, whether or not it had to do with their missiles; the slow realization that, if Larissan raiders hit the Cumbre system, these four women and men would be a ship’s only chance; and the willingness most Forcemen had to escalate, with Angara’s tacit approval, any forecastle brawl.
At first, many of the soldiers swore they’d never get any sleep offplanet, that the hum of the ship drive would turn them
into babbling idiots long before the ship ported. But after two days in space, they didn’t notice the noise any more than the crew.
“And here I went and thought riding shotgun on these transports would make life a little more interesting than sitting around the barracks spit-shining a blaster.” Montagna sighed.
“Careful, young Tweg,” Lir warned. “Every war I’ve been in starts slow, with everybody pissing and moaning about no action, and they’re never going to get forward in time for the shooting, shitting and shouting. A year later, people are stumbling around, shell-shocked, thousand-meter stare, wondering why they were so damned foolish.
“Stand warned, Darod.”
“Mmmh,” Montagna said.
“Another thing about wars,” Lir continued. “You always seem to remember the beginnings best. After things get serious, it’s just a dull, bloody blur. Also, the people that get dead at the beginning of a war generally are the best remembered. So if you want barracks or a landing field named after you, now’s the best time to die heroically.”
“I’ll pass on that idea,” Montagna said. “Question. How many wars have you been in, Adj-Prem?”
I&R troops might have been informal in combat or in their own company, but not around outsiders, and the soldiers assigned to escort duty kept things especially formal, just as they kept themselves as immaculate as possible, even in the rather oily working spaces of a merchant ship, with the whispered slogan, “Anybody can be piggy enough to be a sailor.”
Monique considered. “The ‘Raum … then the Musth … then this bit … before that two minor campaigns before the Force got sent to Cumbre. That was back when we were called Swift Lance, for shit’s sake, under Caud Melk, and then Caud Williams, who got killed in the ‘Raum rising. Plus, on Cumbre, chasing what they called bandits in the hills, which never rates a campaign ribbon.” She paused, tallied.
“Enough, I guess.”
Darod thought better than saying Lir was obviously a little older than she looked, found another question: “What was it like, being under the Confederation?”
“About the same as now, to be truthful. Independent Strike Forces like this one always were assigned to the edge of nowhere. I never had the chance to operate with a full-scale Confederation army, just like I never saw a full-tilt war.” Lir sounded envious. “But there were differences. We had better supplies, faster, naturally. ‘Though when I think back, toward the end, when we were on … what was it, Qwet VII, that was it, before we got shipped to Cumbre, we were operating pretty thin. Promotions were a lot slower, since there were tests and stuff, and after you got temp rank, the promotion had to be vetted all the way back to Army Headquarters on Centrum.”
“What do you think happened to the Confederation?” Montagna asked.
“Hell if I know,” Lir answered. “Most likely they got soft, got lazy, let other people do their thinking and fighting for them. But I guess that’s probably what any soldier’d say about any empire, back to Roma or whatever, a long, long time ago.”
“Okay, old soldier,” Montagna said. “What comes next?”
“For who?”
“For us.”
“First, we whip up on these Larissans, teach them not to be messing with their betters. Then we rebuild, and, most likely, go looking for the next bastard.”
“Which’ll be?”
“Hell if I know,” Lir said again. “I’m no pol or General Staffer. I go where they point me, kill people and break things ‘til they tell me to stop.”
“Did you ever want to be anything but a soldier?”
Lir was quiet for a time.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be some kind of professional jocker … an athlete.” She shrugged. “But I wasn’t going to the right schools, my parents didn’t have any money for special training, and the teams I played on didn’t have any talent in depth. Teams with only one star don’t win tourneys or get noticed, generally, ‘cause everybody’s got to have backup to win.
“The best I could do was, real young, join an opera company.”
“What’s that?”
“Doing stories live, on a stage, instead of a holo. Everybody sings, instead of talks. I didn’t sing much, but I was a decent dancer. And an acrobat. Which meant I got to do the fight sequences. There were a couple of older dancers who knew a bunch of martial arts, and didn’t mind passing time between bookings teaching.
“We were good enough to tour a couple of star systems,” Lir went on. “Then we got stuck in the middle of a war with the government collapsed around us, and the best way to stay alive was to learn how to use a blaster.
“I did … and, hell, I guess I fit right in. When the war was over I didn’t want to go out on the street again, worrying about my next meal and doss, and so I ended up joining up with the Confederation.
“Simple story. What made you join up?”
“I’m from near Launceston,” Montagna said. “And my folks had some credits, so I could play any sport I wanted. Mostly swimming. I thought everything was real well planned, and then there was the ‘Raum thing, and my father’s business got wrecked, so we weren’t doing as well as we could’ve.
“Then there was a big tournament. You’re not supposed to say anything like this because it makes you look like a pissy loser, but the tournament was rigged, and somebody else … two somebody elses … got the medals and the chance to go on. Plus there was a boy, and that didn’t work out at all, and all of a sudden I wanted to be someplace else.”
“The Force,” Lir said.
“Yeh,” Montagna agreed. “Why not?”
“A lot of people with that kind of story end up here,” Monique said. “You fixing on staying in?”
Montagna shook her head slowly.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” She got up. “More caff?”
Darod refilled both cups. Without turning from the machine, she asked, voice deliberately casual:
“Can I ask a question that’s none of my business? Not about you, Adj-Prem.”
“You can always ask,” Lir said.
“It’s about Mil Jaansma. Is he married?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
“Who’s that lady he’s always with? The rich one.”
Monique gave Montagna a thumbnail sketch of Jasith.
“What do you think of her?” Darod returned to the table, sat down.
“This isn’t anything more than my opinion,” Monique said. “And I don’t know the woman well enough to be sure. But I don’t have a whole helluva lot of use for her.”
“Why not?”
“First, she dumped Mil Jaansma after the ‘Raum rising, for no reason I ever heard. Then, when things got shitty again, with the Musth, and her husband turned traitor, which is what he was, even if he managed to buy himself out of a war-crimes trial afterward, she’s back putting a liplock on Garvin.
“I’m not real large on people who don’t stick by what they decide. I just wonder, if the stick gets shitty again, if she’ll still be there.
“But then, I’m one of those people who aren’t sure if a soldier ought to have anybody on the outside. Your friends are enough, and when it itches, go somewhere and scratch it with somebody you don’t have to see again, or worry about what kind of person they really are.”
“Kind of a lonely life,” Darod Montagna said.
Lir shrugged. “So? You come in this world by yourself, go out by yourself, don’t you?” She eyed Darod. “Jaansma’s good-looking enough, and smart enough, although, if you ask me, the smartest thing he’s ever done is let the boss do his heavy thinking for him.”
Darod shivered. “Cent Yoshitaro’s a good officer. But he’s cold. He looks at you with those hard eyes of his, and it’s like you’re nothing more than a figure in an equation.”
“So?” Lir asked, a bit of scorn in her voice. “You want humanity and concern, you’ve got Garvin. Or, rather, lemme put it another way. You don’t got Jaansma. At least not right now. And you could end up feeling li
ke a stobor on a treadmill if you try to change that and get personal with him.
“A rule I’ve got, which has done me good as a soldier and on the outside, is don’t go after what isn’t intended. If you do — ”
Alarms roared, and a synth voice came:
“All hands, all hands, Condition Red! Forcemen, please report immediately to your weapons station!”
The two scooped up their weapons vests, always nearby, ran down a passageway, up a ladder to the bridge deck.
The captain was waiting. “We’ve a report from System Control that unidentified ships have been detected.”
“Where?”
“Fortunately for us, they appeared well in-system. They were reported by a station on one of F-Cumbre’s moons, and there was a mayday from a transport off F-Cumbre. I’d guess they’re headed for D-Cumbre, although the plotting shows the sun’s between them and D. Closest settled world to them is C-Cumbre.
“I plan to maintain our current orbit to K-Cumbre unless advised otherwise or the situation changes. If the ships are Larissan, and change their orbit, we’ll run back and hide in the asteroids.”
“Right, sir,” Lir said. “Our station’ll be manned and ready until further notice.”
• • •
“Now, isn’t this a better way to fight a war?” Jasith Mellusin said.
“I suppose so,” Garvin admitted. “But I’ve got this niggle that says I should be on a canvas cot instead of where I am.”
“Where does it say soldiers all have to be poor and miserable?”
“I dunno,” Jaansma said. “But it’s got to, somewhere. Just like it says we’ve got to be scared and dirty.”
“Pfoo,” Jasith said. She was lolling on a bed only slightly too small to land an aksai on, in the owner’s stateroom of her yacht, the Godrevy. If it wasn’t for the slightest vibration through the carpeting and the two screens showing ship position within the system, and relative position within the convoy instead of windows, they could be in a luxury suite onplanet. If maybe Garvin thought the stateroom was a little overstated, with its antigrav-controlled waterfall near the entrance, and if he wasn’t fond of baby blue as a color theme, he said nothing. It was, after all, her yacht.
